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Aggregation

When using Pinterest (and Flickr and YouTube and Facebook
and on and on), what copyright, fair use, trademark and other issues
weigh on building communities and corporate use of fan pages and social media generally?
A hypothetical “Company” has plans for its Pinterest “community”, and
in particular, wonders about these situations:

Using Images of Identifiable People

Fair Use and Images

Trademarks: When is a “Fair Use” Argument Strongest?

Why Attribution and Linking to Original Sources is Important

3 introductory questions:

Question #1: Someone used to be a paid Company
sponsor or spokesperson. They are no longer. Can the Company continue
to post a photo of the old sponsor to Pinterest? Short Answer:
If the contract with the sponsor expressly permits it, yes.
Ordinarily, the contract would specify engagement for limited time, and
that would prohibit rights to use images beyond the contract period.
But it really depends on what the contract says.

Question #2: Can the Company post a photo of a fan of the Company? Short Answer:
Express consent is required, either through a release or the fan’s
agreement (whenever the photo is submitted) to terms of service.
Exceptions are discussed below.

Question #3: Can the Company post a photo of a Coca-Cola bottle on its Pinterest page? Short Answer: If the use of the image does not suggest (implicitly or explicitly) endorsement or association, then yes.

Unlike traditional newsroom journalists, “citizen journalists” have
no formal way to ensure that everyone maintains similar quality
standards. Which does not mean that quality standards are necessarily
(or consistently) maintained at traditional newsrooms, but rather that a
traditional hierarchical editorial structure imposes at least
theoretical guidelines.

As anyone who has been following the debateregarding the "future of journalism" knows, there have been a lot of ink (and bytes) spilled arguing over the role news aggregators are playing in the "decline" of traditional journalistic models. Rupert Murdoch has labeled the practice of news aggregation by entities like Google News "

The purpose of copyright is to "promote progress." We achieve this promotion by giving authors a limited monopoly over their works so that they may profit from them. This is what is known as "the incentive theory." If we give authors the incentive to create works, they will create more of them, thus adding ideas and expression to the marketplace. On the other hand, we don't give copyright protection to mere facts.

The fallout from the GateHouse v. New York Times settlement, anticlimactic as it was, has been fascinating, and deliciously exhaustive in the way that only Internet-based discussions of Internet-related issues can be.

Like a storm coming over the horizon, the recent lawsuit filed by GateHouse Media against the New York Times Company, which operates Boston.com, has thrown the CMLP into disarray just as we were preparing to depart to warmer climes for the holidays.

We are looking for contributing authors with expertise in media law, intellectual property, First Amendment, and other related fields to join us as guest bloggers. If you are interested, please contact us for more details.

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